Girdling a tree--what does it take?

[old CB]

A good chunk of my work the last few months has been a dwarf mistletoe removal project in a 20 acre (30? I forget) stand of ponderosa pine. If a tree is fully infested, it goes. (I climb and trim whichever ones can be saved.) While I fell a significant number of trees, I like to keep a dead tree here and there for habitat, especially if it’s big and open-grown. So I girdled one such tree back in Feb. (Jan.?). Knowing that a simple kerf surrounding a tree can be insufficient to kill it, I cut one kerf into sapwood all the way around, then another about a bar’s width (3-4”?) below. Then I bored through under bark, going around the tree between the two kerfs and leaving clean white wood.

That damn tree is thriving. We came through with the chipper a couple weeks back and I repeated the bore cut to remove the pitch that I guess is protecting this thing. Yet today when we showed up to continue work, you could assess the tree above the girdling and not suspect it wears a white belt.

Someone ’splain that to me.

 

[Twindad]

By girdling the tree, you are cutting through the phloem or inner bark which is the tissue that carries carbohydrates from the leaves down the tree to the roots. And while there are many variables at play such as tree species, size, age, health, time of year, as well as environmental conditions, a tree can live a long time without sending new carbohydrates to its lower trunk and roots. Girdling does not cut off water going up the tree from the roots, so photosynthesis continues. Some girdled trees may live for weeks, some for months, and I've even seen some live for over a year after being girdled. They will eventually die, it may just take a while.

 

[northmanlogging]

girdling is a slow process, as explained, when in doubt remove a wider patch of bark/cambrium (s?) layer, then wait awhile.

 

[treeslayer2003]

i'v girdled beech just like you did and they still living 3 years later. a poplar would be dead that year.......prolly that week.

 

[madhatte]

A girdled pine is a dead pine, even if it doesn't know it yet.

 

[old CB]

Very good. Thanks for the info.

 

[Spotted Owl]

Girdle in deep then again about a foot above or below. Then use your axe to split and pull the bark and first layer off the ring. Girdle death is a slow one. If you don't like the open ring paint it. If it's stubborn, and it really needs to go, drill it. 1" auger bit, 45* down angle to about an inch from coming out the other side, pack and fill with rock salt, all four quarters. To bad ya can't find the old paint pots or the contents anymore, girdle a smother that "paint" on them and it's a goner for sure. A few local walnuts took over two years to fully stop sprouting. Ponderosa is a wet wood and will take some time also, around here they do anyway. Is there a particular reason for a speedy death, or just wondering if you should have seen something by now?



Owl

 

[old CB]

This tree is heavily infested w/ dwarf mistletoe. Don't particularly need a speedy death, but we want to starve the mistletoe, hopefully before it sends a new crop of seed (sometime in summer, I believe) shooting over the landscape.

 

[Spotted Owl]

Drill it and pack salt in the holes, then fill the holes with bleach. The salt and bleach mix will do the killing you need, you may have to keep it up though, if it runs low fill it back up.



Owl

 

[old CB]

Thanks, Owl. I have no doubt that will work. But I think I'll monitor it for a while (got a second girdled tree now). We're coming out of our heaviest moisture months, heading into long hours of hot sun--my gut says we'll see decline in the tree before the mistletoe seed does its thing.

It's a little embarrassing to be a tree guy and not know such basic biology. But I'm a sawyer more than an arborist, and there's much about tree health and pathology that is somewhat off my radar. Although I'm always out to learn more. Thanks especially to Twindad for a particularly cogent explanation.

 

[Whitespider]

Are we talkin' 'bout the elastic girdle, or the lace-up type??

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